Secrets
by arbitraryink
Summary: Ron think that once, he might have been a good man. DHr, implied HL and RLav. Oneshot.


**Secrets**_**  
Written for the Hot Summer Nights with Draco and Hermione fic exchange.**_

_Author Note: _Relationships (implied and elaborated) in this fic - Draco and Hermione, Ron and Lavender, Harry and Luna. Placed under the characters Ron and Hermione because that's who the fic is written about.

* * *

The war was over, he knew. 

Yet here, in the dappled sunlight of his mother's garden, it seemed like that dark cloud hadn't yet dissipated, hadn't yet released him from its spell. Still, here he hid, on what may just be the biggest day of his entire life.

He closed his eyes and he let his mind wander, something he'd been doing far too much of, lately. Somehow, he hadn't been able to keep himself from thinking about what the world would have been like had he done something differently. Various scenarios played through his imagination, and he'd pick and choose as they came along. There were some, though, some he knew to be true no matter how he wished they weren't.

For one thing, he would be marrying Hermione this afternoon instead. Beautiful, beautiful Hermione who was really more plain than pretty but had the purest heart he'd ever seen, the heart of molten gold that he thought could have somehow shaped itself to love him.

He'd loved and lost, he knew, because of the choices he'd made. Oh, over the course of his life there had been many decisions, so _many_ decisions and he knew that the ones he'd made had definitely not been the right ones.

He knew that it was his fault Harry was dead. He had deliberately ignored the orders ("You _have_ to protect him. You _have_ to keep him safe!") and now the consequences were slowly eating away at him. Harry had said, "You've got to watch my back, you've got to help me get close enough to kill him," but Hermione had been screaming _so loud_ and he couldn't just _leave_ her and so he'd left Harry on his own to be hit between the shoulder blades with a deadly bolt of green light.

Searching for anything, anything to replace the horrible memory that kept playing through his mind like a broken record (haunted eyes, pretend smile, "it's okay, Ron, we all knew that it had to happen anyway, we all knew it but him, Ron, you knew he was the last of the Horcruxes, Ron, you knew it too") he resorted to whispering names to himself. The lovely list that had gone through his head continuously over the past year until it was now his calming tool. It always began the same way, Harry's name preceding all other murmurs, and he'd gone over that list so many times that never once had he forgotten any of those thirty-seven people.

Harry Potter. Arthur, Bill, and Fred Weasely. Ginny Weasely. Annika Edwards, Devra Friedman. Lance Williams, Nancy Jorgens, Lacey Cameron. Ludovic Bagman, Tom Dorosz. Antonin Dolohov. Roberta Nichols, Rabastan Lestrange, Seamus Finnegan, Kari Finnegan, Padma Patil. Samson Davies, Marcus Flint, Pansy Parkinson. Colin and Dennis Creevy. Miranda—

"Ron?"

He didn't get any further than that. Eyes snapping open, Ron straightened himself, running a hand through his shock of red hair as his name was called again.

"Ron?"

"Yes," he responded, and forced a smile onto his face as Hermione came into view. She was looking so lovely, he realized, with her hair clipped up and her curls tumbling back down around her shoulders. The yellow sundress complimented her darker coloring, and it was all Ron could do to keep himself casual.

"I thought maybe you weren't going to come, but Luna told me you were here already."

"Of course I came," she answered, giving a little laugh. "Did you really think I'd miss this of all days?"

And she ushered him out of the garden and to the front of the house where guests were still arriving and making their way to the spacious field next door.

--

The memorial for Harry Potter was extravagant, the best the Ministry could offer the man who'd saved them all. His death hadn't been noble, Ron knew, but it had still done its job and the wizarding world was free.

A monument stood on the hill in the field where the fate of wizardkind had been decided. Down beneath the shining green stalks, the grass was red, Ron knew, red with the blood of thousands. That was where Harry was going to be placed, thought the world. There were some of them, though, who knew that the Ministry was burying an empty coffin.

Between the forest and the lake on the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a sapling stood, bound to a stake to keep it straight as it grew. As the years passed, Ron knew, the tree would flourish, and the leaves would shoot out, and the blossoms would bud and flower. And on that tree would hang the sweetest apples their side of Britain. Because it was under that tree, on those very grounds, in the only place he had ever called home, that Harry slept.

It was in the evening of the day of the Ministry's memorial, when Ron Apparated to Hogsmeade village and from there walked to the forest, staying along the tree line as Harry's grave came closer and closer, that Ron was faced with the hardest thing of his life.

Draco Malfoy had been kneeling there, his head bowed and his fingers brushing the dirt, the dirt that was soiling the knees of his tan slacks. From where Ron stood he couldn't tell for sure, but he fancied that the traitor was crying. He'd wanted to rush out at the blond boy then and there, Avada him where he crouched, watch him die with eyes open wide with surprise.

He hated that he wanted that.

Especially watching Hermione come into view, walking slowly toward the same little tree, and touching her fingers very lightly to Draco Malfoy's shoulder, watching him twitch with surprise and then slouch again, watching Hermione draw him into an embrace and watching the two of them crying under the glow of the moon.

--

"Ron, look at all the people."

It was a beautiful day, a perfect day for a wedding. He couldn't bring himself to appreciate it. Everyone who had received an invitation was present, but not _everyone_ was there.

From where he stood, Ron could see Fred with his haunted eyes, one arm wrapped around his mother and the other hand shoved deep into his pocket. Kill one twin and you virtually kill the other – George's death was proof of that. He saw Fleur holding Gabrielle's hand, a wavering smile on her face as Charlie stood solidly beside her. Bill had wanted the werewolf for himself and had killed Fenrir Greyback even as Greyback had killed him. Percy stood to the side, not really a part of the family but still a _part_.

And Luna, pretty Luna, she watched a little boy as he sat on the ground plucking grass piece by piece and holding it up to his face for examination. Harry was there in the little boy, his untidy, unmanageable, raven-coloured hair even with Luna's dreamy blue eyes. The only memory of what good happened during the war.

Ginny wasn't there. Ginny wasn't there and his father wasn't there, and neither were Harry and Bill and George and Dean and Seamus and Padma and Ernie—

"Look, Ron, here she comes. Isn't she beautiful?"

In his eyes, Lavender Brown had always been beautiful, but never as beautiful as homely Hermione Granger. Even here, with Lavender on the arm of her father, following Parvati Patil with her bouquet of pink roses, he still looked past his wife-to-be for Hermione's face, radiant and smiling— at Draco Malfoy.

He forced away his contempt and offered her a smile when she looked his way, a smile that she returned before looking to Lavender once more. Ron Weasley had always wanted her to be happy, if nothing else.

--

"Oh, Draco, no, it's absolutely pouring out there. No wonder they called off the reception— but I was so looking forward to dancing."

"We're home, now, love, who's to say we can't dance here?"

"In the rain?"

"Mm."

The crooning voice of Celestina Warbeck floated from the front porch of the tiny little country house, and Draco drew her into his arms. "You charmed the heart right out of me," he sang off-key, causing Hermione to laugh and push his chest lightly. "Oh, my poor heart, where has it gone?"

"It's left me for a spell," Hermione joined, and both began humming the rest of the verse, laughing together as they stumbled down the stairs and into the swamped lawn. "Draco, I'm sloshing, my feet are wet—"

"You're going to be drenched in a minute—"

"But I don't want to be drenched!"

"I thought you wanted to dance?"

"I do love the rain."

"I do love you."

Ron stepped back around the corner of the house, into the shadows made by the dancing glow of the lantern on the porch. He'd only ever wanted Hermione happy, and she seemed so much happier than she had in years. Lavender was waiting, he reminded himself, and Lavender loved him as much as he loved Hermione. It wasn't the fame anymore, he thought, the idea of being connected to someone whose name had graced the Prophet countless times over their years at school. No, it seemed to him that now she'd seen the other side of war, the side that wasn't so glorious, and that underneath the flirtatious surface, Lavender needed to be loved just as much as the next person.

But nobody ever said that he couldn't keep his secrets.

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_If you've read it, please review it. _


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